ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Also, no one ever talks about an individual "datum" -- "data" really only even makes sense as a collective.

Not sure it's so straightforward in technical or scientific contexts (which is where Morbs works): philosophy certainly uses the term "sense datum", to distinguish a notional individual sensory "item" from the apperceived sensory mass. In ordinary speech and usage, you're right IMO (though I am British and thus brutish about the way English should treat loan-words and their plurals)

happy enough to abuse data but i'm an antichrist for referenda and stadia

Fair. Even I tend to get pedantic about "criterion." But the only way "data" is ever used in the *media* (ha) is as a collective. "The data suggests a link between hot dogs and cancer." It's not only unheard of, but nonsensical to talk about one "datum" versus another "datum" in that context.

referenda only exists by false back-formation, it's bad latin: referendum is a gerund in latin, so has no plural -- since we need a plural for a word which is no longer a gerund, referendums is pedantically correct (because we form plurals in English by adding an s).

course we also sometimes form plurals in english by adding nothing, like sheep, so maybe you could be super-annoying by arguing that the plural is also referendum

I see data with a plural verb pretty often.

http://news.google.com/news?q=%22the+data+suggest%22&num=50&hl=en&safe=off&sa=G&scoring=d

Seem to remember when I looked it up before Fowler said it was much more the common practice in the US than the UK: will check again when I got off this stupid train and back among my lovely books

Quick search of nytimes.com found 13 examples of "the data suggests" and 17 examples of "the data suggest" in the last 12 months. So either they don't have a style preference or their copy editors are asleep at the wheel.

Hurting, you got a point, but read enough medical lit where it's used as a plural and "data is" will look weird.

if you take referenda from me, you leave me with nothing

I had to deal with writing weather reports for 11 years that talked about "heat indices" to now writing business reports that talk about "consumer indexes continuing to drop."

IT'S ONE -- OR THE OTHER!

referendices

¿Cómo se indice?

indicenous industry

In my early days, I got into trouble for (deliberately) allowing a singular "bacteria" in a newspaper headline - something like "*recent scandalous activity* is a bacteria in our politics". I got called up on it, and was all, "You think I didn't notice it? I just thought 'bacterium' would look awful fussy." But I got that kind of youthful nonsense beaten out of me.

modern dickens imo

Is "referendum" a gerund or is it a gerundive of obligation, which as far as my rusty Latin can remember does have a plural? Maybe it shouldn't in Latin but the singulars of e.g. "agenda" and "propaganda" are so rarely seen in English that I feel like they must have been imported as plurals, not that I can back that up.

Wd be tempted to solve "is a bacteria" by taking out the article! Sometimes I think abt how English says "that's me" or "that's the people I was telling you about" (verb agrees with "that" and not what comes after - subject but not complement?) and German says "das bin ich" or "das sind die Leute" (verb agrees with complement, not "das") and wonder which languages do which and if there are any other options

(languages are crazy, there probably are)

wow @ you savages condoning singluar data use

Bacteria, like data, are thought of en masse in the public imagination, rather than as large accumulations of individually recognizable bits. A good analogy would be rice. This fact, coupled with the fact that native English speakers don't recognize Latin plural forms and don't care about them, is what lies behind the tug of war between ordinary yobs and language snobs over "datum" and "bacterium". The snobs will certainly lose this one.

To the common ear, "a single bacteria" will do nicely to call out one organism while still sounding like English. Likewise, "a piece of data" would analogize well to "a grain of rice".

To the common ear, "a single bacteria" will do nicely to call out one organism

I'm no scientist, but ugh, no!

The unwashed do not care for your squeamishness on this point. It is destiny!

'that's the people i was telling you about'

!

non silvatici sed barbari

you got me there i'm a business grad

OK, oops, I got the US/UK tendency the wrong way round per Fowler (writing in 1926 or 1965, not sure the date of this entry): "Latin plurals sometimes become singular English words (e.g. agenda, stamina) and data is often so treated in the US; in Britain this is still considered a solecism, though it may occasionally appear."

I am still inclined to think that this judgment has now switched round: that upper-end US style sheets would be more tenaciously classicist and/or respectful of loan-words, Brit ones more laissez faire and/or johnbullish.

My stamina for this discussion are depleted. Time for supper.

I am still inclined to think that this judgment has now switched round: that upper-end US style sheets would be more tenaciously classicist and/or respectful of loan-words, Brit ones more laissez faire and/or johnbullish.

yeah this is definitely my experience in science

i was a singular data dude all my life until i started publishing in journals. still feel such a prig using plural.

Surely nobody says that's the people I was telling you about? As for that's me, I remember discussing this a lot in Italy. Where we would say "Hello, it's me" when arriving home (and calling out to someone known but unseen), they would say "Sono io" which is like "I am me" (or more literally "I am I"), which seems weird.

People do say "That's the people I was telling you about"! And when they don't, they might say - much more often in fact - "There's the people". You wouldn't usually write that, formally. But nobody says the correct versions: "There're the people", "Those're the people". The former is impossible to say, the latter indistinguishable in most accents from "There are".

"Thoser" sounds different enough from "therer", or at least no more similar than a bunch of other words that we manage to tell apart?

People do say "That's the people I was telling you about"!

That's crazy, I've never heard that!

nobody says the correct versions: "There're the people",

uh yes they do, here anyway

Xp: What? I would definitely say "Those are...". Maybe this another GB/US split. I would agree that I generally say There's before plurals, though, instead of There are.

(my xp was to eyeball kicks)

people are going through dumb mental contortions to pretend that other people don't say "that's who I was telling you about"

there're is v pronounceable fyi

I wasn't very happy with that example, but I've def heard it, and plenty of other instances of using "it's" or "that's" with a plural complement which I can't recall exactly right now

I mean if someone said "who are those people over there" I'd follow their word choice and reply "those are" or "they're", but if they said "who's that over there" (indicating more than one person) I'd probably say "that's the people from xyz"

(I'd also definitely say "that's Frank and Bob and Sandy" and would be surprised to hear "those are", but it sounds more natural in a US accent so maybe it is another example of ILX's Great Divide)

uhh but even if you don't think you've heard "that is (plural noun)", you might agree that it's a lot better than "that are", which is completely wrong in English but not in other languages, and I've completely forgotten my point now, if I ever had one. someone please tell me if I am misusing the grammatical concept of "complement" btw

(Not that it's important, but my last post had a big mistake in it: the final two words should be "Those are", and I meant that unless you speak very slowly "Those are" is the same as "Those're", no matter which words you think you're saying.)

'that's the people i was telling you about'

!

― RIP Big Muam mißya til I'm Libya (darraghmac), Thursday, October 27, 2011 12:53 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"The Jews"

Being a westerner, I always favor "them's the folks like I was telling you about".

Brackets vs. Dashes vs. Commas

I'm never sure when to use which and usually end up guessing when it comes to parenthetical sentences. Any easy rules for this?

By brackets do you mean parentheses?

Commas, like in this very sentence, are for small pauses that flow. Dashes for bigger breaks -- like this -- that fuck with the flow of a sentence. Parentheses for longer clarifying remarks that don't fit with the narrative of the paragraph (a word whose first reference in the OED is from the 13th century).

This story is heartbreaking, but there's a sentence in here that made me pause.

Stephanie Decker, 36, lost one leg above the knee and the other above the ankle, and broke seven ribs, but her two children, Dominic, 8, and Reese, 5, were unharmed after a twister with 175 mph winds leveled their house in Marysville, Ind.

I'm assuming that she lost her leg below her thigh and below her shin? I mean, I understand what her injury was, but saying that she lost something above her ankle -- well, she lost her ankle too.

It reminds me of that Flight of the Conchords where they talk about how a guy got his body cut off from his dick.

that is really awkward phrasing

I trust this email finds you well, apologies if this finds you incorrectly.

Wish they'd gone for the full on zeugma - I trust this email finds you well and correctly.

What would the gerund form of gif be? Giffing (as in "making a gif")?

Gif is a noun, so I don't think you can make it a gerund?

Let's say I'm verbing "gif," though.